The primary aim of h s research is to evaluate crime and its effect on people from a Reformative perspective. Furthermore to develop a social work support model, according to which co-ordinated services can be provide to all people that are affected by crime in the Northwest Province as an exemplar of a rural community. The thesis consists of three sections. Section A includes in the first place a reference to the actuality of the research. It is namely clear that the level of crime in South Africa, in some instances the highest in the world, requires extensive support for the survivors of these criminal acts. Therefore, the research aim, as given above, lead to four specific objectives. Section A also explains the research methodology. The research was structured according to the Intervention research model within the qualitative research approach. Data was collected by means of a literature study, comparison of the systems of victim support in the Netherlands and South Africa and interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule. Section B consists of the four articles that form the report about the research outcomes. Each article is a report about a particular sub-project of the research and each has, as self-contained units, an own research aim, research method and report Each of these is linked with the central aim, objectives and content of the over-arching research project. The four articles are: In Article 1, 'Crime and its impact on people - a Christian perspective', crime is turned down and it is argued that the survivor of crime should be cared for within the Biblical perspective. Article 2, 'A comparison between the support systems for victims of crime in the Netherlands and South Africa', provided clear guidelines for support systems in developing communities. The formation of a h e support network and the provisioning of compensation to victims are some of these guidelines. In Article 3, 'An investigation into support available to survivors of crime in the North-West Province' it was found that a lack of specialized and professional services is present as well as the lack of co-ordination in the provisioning of the support services. An effective support system of professional services is of the utmost importance and resources, especially h a n d resources, are required to develop an attainable and sustainable support system. The fourth article 'A model for support services available to crime affected people in the North-West Province' contains the model that was developed for support to crime affected people in a rural and deep rural area of our country. The model can be illustrated by a network consisting of four panels, each including particular institutions providing particular services. In Section C a summary of the findings and recommendations of the full research project is provided. Some short-comings, based on specific restraints, are explained and the contribution of the study is provided. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

The primary aim of h s research is to evaluate crime and its effect on people from a Reformative perspective. Furthermore to develop a social work support model, according to which co-ordinated services can be provide to all people that are affected by crime in the Northwest Province as an exemplar of a rural community. The thesis consists of three sections. Section A includes in the first place a reference to the actuality of the research. It is namely clear that the level of crime in South Africa, in some instances the highest in the world, requires extensive support for the survivors of these criminal acts. Therefore, the research aim, as given above, lead to four specific objectives. Section A also explains the research methodology. The research was structured according to the Intervention research model within the qualitative research approach. Data was collected by means of a literature study, comparison of the systems of victim support in the Netherlands and South Africa and interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule. Section B consists of the four articles that form the report about the research outcomes. Each article is a report about a particular sub-project of the research and each has, as self-contained units, an own research aim, research method and report Each of these is linked with the central aim, objectives and content of the over-arching research project. The four articles are: In Article 1, 'Crime and its impact on people - a Christian perspective', crime is turned down and it is argued that the survivor of crime should be cared for within the Biblical perspective. Article 2, 'A comparison between the support systems for victims of crime in the Netherlands and South Africa', provided clear guidelines for support systems in developing communities. The formation of a h e support network and the provisioning of compensation to victims are some of these guidelines. In Article 3, 'An investigation into support available to survivors of crime in the North-West Province' it was found that a lack of specialized and professional services is present as well as the lack of co-ordination in the provisioning of the support services. An effective support system of professional services is of the utmost importance and resources, especially h a n d resources, are required to develop an attainable and sustainable support system. The fourth article 'A model for support services available to crime affected people in the North-West Province' contains the model that was developed for support to crime affected people in a rural and deep rural area of our country. The model can be illustrated by a network consisting of four panels, each including particular institutions providing particular services. In Section C a summary of the findings and recommendations of the full research project is provided. Some short-comings, based on specific restraints, are explained and the contribution of the study is provided. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

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Carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites have found a wide range of applications in the aerospace, marine, sports and automotive industries owing to their lightweight and acceptable mechanical properties compared to the commonly used metallic materials. The currently dominating method of machining CFRP is by mechanical means that has found many problems including extensive tool wear, fibre pull-out and delamination. Lasers as non-contact tools have been widely applied for cutting and drilling materials. However, machining of CFRP composites using lasers can be challenging due to inhomogeneity in the material properties and structures, which can lead to thermal damage such as charring, heat affected zones (HAZs), resin recession and delamination. In previous studies, Nd:YAG, diode pumped solid state (DPSS), CO2 (continuous wave), disk and fibre lasers were used in machining CFRP composites and the control of damage such as the size of heat affected zones (HAZ) and achieving comparable material removal rate with the mechanical processes remain a challenge. Most reported work showed a typical heat affected zone of 0.2-1.2 mm. The availability of short pulsed transversely excited atmospheric (TEA) CO2 lasers and ultra-short laser pulse sources such as picosecond lasers make it possible to improve the laser machining quality of CFRP materials. In this research, the machining of CFRP composites using a microsecond pulsed TEA CO2 laser, a state of the art high power picosecond laser and a 1 kW single mode fibre laser system was investigated. The yielded heat affected zone was less than < 25 µm for the TEA CO2 and the picosecond laser machining, although the material removal rate was low. Additionally, it has been shown that the pulsed fibre laser improved the machining quality compared to that with the continuous mode. A potential application of the fibre laser for composite repair and remanufacturing was investigated. The interactions between picosecond laser beam and CFRP composite were studied in more detail including understanding the self-limiting effect in single and multiple parallel tracks drilling/machining through both experimental and theoretical studies. Furthermore, a sequential laser and mechanical drilling of CFRP was investigated to improve the machining rate. The work performed in this PhD was driven by aerospace industry needs, with the collaboration of Rolls-Royce plc and BAE Systems as industrial partners.

The purpose of this thesis is an analysis of the evolution of the retirement and pension system in the Czech Republic since 1993 up to the present time, with focus on law reform provisions and associated financing methods, applied legislative and institutional framework and encumbrance of public budgets. Many European countries have already performed reformation of their pension systems, the reason mostly being demographic changes and unsustainability of pension financing solely from public budgets. This topic is becoming relevant also in the Czech Republic in view of the II. pillar pension savings introduced in the beginning of the previous year. Nevertheless, this will apparently not be the last step in the context of pension reforms given the unexpectedly low number of participants in the pillar. Overburdening of the public budgets and insufficient provisioning of elder population thus still remain some of the capital problems of the Czech Republic. In the theoretical part we first characterize the theory of public budgets and sketch the significance of the cash flow itself. Next we will define the meaning of retirement and pension systems, their classification according to the type of financing and operation and their respective advantages and disadvantages. We will also determine the main factors influencing the form of these systems. In the practical part we carry out the analysis of the retirement and pension system in the Czech Republic, structured into several time intervals delimited by the effected reform provisions since 1993 until the present. We investigate each of these stages separately, focusing mainly on financing methods and the impact on the public budgets; and further from the point of view of the legislative and institutional frameworks. Finally we will assess the effectiveness of the reform provisions and their impact on the provisioning of elders and the public budgets.

This disertation presents optimization algorithm with probability direction vector. This algorithm, in its basic form, belongs to category of stochastic optimization algorithms. It uses statistically effected perturbation of individual through state space. This work also represents modification of basic idea to the form of swarm optimization algoritm. This approach contains form of stochastic cooperation. This is one of the new ideas of this algorithm. Population of individuals cooperates only through modification of probability direction vector and not directly. Statistical tests are used to compare resultes of designed algorithms with commonly used algorithms Simulated Annealing and SOMA. This part of disertation also presents experimental data from other optimization problems. Disertation ends with chapter which seeks optimal set of control variables for each designed algorithm.

Hypertension is a global disease that many effected people in developing countries is not aware of. Hypertension is linked with cardiovascular disease. Prehypertension is not a disease but if not correctly treated, it could develop into hypertension. The aim of the study was to investigate if there are any differences in circadian blood pressure between two study groups, one group with normal blood pressure and one group with prehypertension. This study was a explorative study and its design is based on measurements of blood pressure values and a questionnaire was used to help get the data collection. 51 students volunteered to have their blood pressure taken from them and out of these 51, 24 where selected into two groups of 12 each for the Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. hese 24 students would be a part of our study and an ambulatory (Schiller-102 plus) blood pressure monitor was used to collect the data. The prevalence of prehypertension findings in the clinical testing phase was 37% of the population. There was a variation between the groups during the day (systolic) but there was not a significant difference during the night.